Cover-Building deliberative public–private partnerships...
Transcript of Cover-Building deliberative public–private partnerships...
Tim ForsythBuilding deliberative public–private partnerships for waste management in Asia Article (Accepted version) (Refereed)
Original citation: Forsyth, Tim (2005) Building deliberative public–private partnerships for waste management in Asia. Geoforum, 36 (4). pp. 429-439. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2004.07.007 © 2005 Elsevier B.V This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/4731/Available in LSE Research Online: May 2008 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s final manuscript accepted version of the journal article, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer review process. Some differences between this version and the published version may remain. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it.
Building deliberative public−private partnerships for waste management in Asia Tim Forsyth Development Studies Institute London School of Economics Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE Tel 020 7955 6836 Fax 020 7955 6844 [email protected]
Geoforum 36:4 429-439. 2005
Length: 7,950 words, including abstract and references
1
Building deliberative public−private partnerships for waste management in Asia
Abstract
Public–private partnerships in environmental policy should not simply be viewed in
instrumental terms as means of providing environmental infrastructure and services,
but also as sites where norms of environmental concern and political accountability
are formulated and replicated. Deliberative public–private partnerships − or
partnerships that allow greater public participation in the formulation of these norms −
may therefore become an important new form of local environmental governance and
help make partnerships more relevant to local environmental needs. This paper
examines case studies of public–private partnerships in waste-to-energy projects in
the Philippines and India to identify how principles of institutional design may
enhance the deliberative nature of public–private partnerships in environmental
policy. The paper argues that current approaches to deliberative, or cooperative
environmental governance concerning public–private partnerships need to
acknowledge insights from network theory concerning the communication of
environmental and political norms before they can be successfully transferred to
developing countries.
KEYWORDS: environmental governance; public−private partnerships; climate
change policy, waste-to-energy; India; Philippines
Introduction
Partnerships between private investors, citizens and states are a topical theme in
debates about environmental governance in developing countries. For years, public–
private partnerships between private companies and states have formed a common
means of providing environmental infrastructure or services where state funds or
2
expertise are lacking. More recently, however, the concept of ‘partnerships’ has
diversified, and now may include broader collaborations between states, companies
and civil organizations, and for a wider range of policy initiatives. Indeed, the United
Nations has called for a greater adoption of partnerships in development policy
through the Global Compact, Millennium Development Goals, and ‘Type-2’
partnerships proposed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg in 2002. As a result of these trends, public–private partnerships are
increasingly not just short-term instrumental agreements between states and private
contractors, but are new political arenas involving various actors where norms of
environmental and developmental policy are formulated and replicated. Developing
new means of environmental governance must therefore acknowledge the roles played
by public−private partnerships, and increase public deliberation about these norms.
This paper identifies lessons for making public−private partnerships more
deliberative. Deliberative public–private partnerships may be defined as partnerships
that maximize public debate about the purpose and inclusivity of collaboration
between state, civil, and market actors, as well as achieve the economic purposes of
collaboration. Deliberative partnerships may benefit all parties, i.e. investors, state,
and citizens, by reducing the costs of and possible resistance to new investment, and
by allowing citizens the chance to make partnerships more relevant to local needs. But
making partnerships more deliberative will also mean giving more attention to how
norms are created or cemented by the act of partnering between different actors.
The paper is divided into three main sections. First, the paper reviews debates about
public–private partnerships in environmental policy and the means to make them
more deliberative. This section draws upon the concept of cooperative environmental
governance (Glasbergen 1998) as a framework to analyze the deliberative nature of
public–private partnerships. Secondly, the paper analyzes case studies of local
partnerships relating to waste management in India and the Philippines. Waste
management is a good example as it is an urgent local environmental need in many
cities, and is often achieved through public–private partnerships. Waste management
is also multi-faceted, involving opportunities for local livelihoods for so-called waste
pickers who profit from recycling material, as well as chances to implement global
3
climate change policy by reducing methane and carbon emissions. Finally, the third
section then draws lessons from the case studies for debates about environmental
governance and making partnerships more deliberative.
Public–private partnerships and cooperative environmental governance
(i) The arguments for partnerships
Public–private partnerships between private companies and states are a well-
established means of providing infrastructure and services that states have neither the
resources nor expertise to supply alone. In such cases, partnerships may commonly
take the form of Build–Operate–Transfer (BOT) or related schemes, which allow
companies to construct infrastructure and operate it profitably until a time when it is
transferred to state ownership (see French, 1998; Labonne, 1998; Osbourne, 2000;
Rosenau, 2000).
In recent years, however, the remit of public–private partnerships has increased
widely following the diversification of actors that collaborate with foreign investors,
and the growing use of partnerships to allow local participation in environmental and
developmental policies in general. Rather than simply seeking to provide badly
needed infrastructure at the cheapest cost to the state, such new approaches to
partnerships may also occur with sub-state actors such as municipalities and citizen
groups, and may be designed to allow greater participation of all non-state actors in
shaping development policy (e.g. Plummer, 2002). Such initiatives have been
encouraged by the United Nation’s Global Compact, and Millennium Development
Goals. And at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in
2002, the importance of international partnerships involving non-state actors was
discussed in so-called ‘type 2 partnerships.’1 Speaking in 1998, United Nations
Secretary General, Kofi Annan explained the basis for integrating business and social
1 ‘Type 2’ partnerships involve collaboration between states and large non-state collaborators such as transnational corporations and NGOs. They are so-called to distinguish them from traditional ‘Type 1’ partnerships between states alone.
4
development by saying, ‘Thriving markets and human security go hand in hand;
without one, we will not have the other.’2
Local involvement in public–private partnerships has also been urged as a means of
overcoming some of the political standoffs in implementing global environmental
agreements, such the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) and its
Kyoto Protocol (1997). Under the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) was established to allow countries with specific greenhouse gas
reduction targets (the so-called Annex I countries) to achieve some of these targets by
investing in climate-friendly activities in countries that do not have these targets (non-
Annex I countries, which are usually developing countries). In recent debates,
however, some developing countries have criticized the CDM for allegedly
encouraging projects such as plantation forestry that may assist global climate change
policy simply by sequestering greenhouse gas emissions, but which offer little
immediate developmental benefit for people in host countries. Yet, alternative
projects that may maximize local benefits, such as investment in industrial
technology, or new forms of renewable energy, are commonly considered expensive
by investors. Such concerns have worked against the achievement of successful, long-
term technology transfer from Annex I countries to non-Annex I countries (Forsyth,
1999:51).
Localized, public–private partnerships have been proposed as a means of reducing
these problems with international investment in climate-friendly technologies.
Collaboration with local citizens may reduce the costs of technology transfer by them
to participate in the shaping of technologies implemented, or in identifying local
needs. Moreover, economic cost sharing with citizens may offset costs if local civil
groups perform certain tasks such as providing maintenance or financial management,
or if the new investment provides complementary functions alongside local activities
such as the collection local waste products for fuel for certain types of renewable
energy. Indeed, such ‘civic environmentalism,’ or local cooperation with investors
may lead to classic ‘win–win’ situations where investors can successfully transfer a
new technology to a new location, and local people can influence the nature and
2 Speech at World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, January 1998
5
purposes of the investment and technology (John, 1994; Stiglitz and Wallsten, 2000).
In eastern Indonesia, for example, the development agency Winrock has established
new forms of decentralized electrification using wind turbines imported from the US,
but where local non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations
administer the projects by creating new institutions for financial and technical
management (see Forsyth, 1999:159).
(ii) Making partnerships deliberative
The optimistic approaches to public–private partnerships in environmental policy,
however, have been met with skepticism from a variety of critics, and particularly
from political scientists who have argued that the political implications of
partnerships outweigh the potential benefits of enacting environmental policy in this
manner (see Osbourne, 2000; Rosenau, 2000).
First, and most fundamentally, some analysts of ecological modernization have
argued that environmental policy allied with business poses important contradictions
for modern society. The more ecocentric3 critics have argued that using business to
enact environmental protection only strengthens the causes of environmental
degradation and anthropogenic climate change. (For example, Beck’s concept of
reflexive modernization makes this conclusion; see Blowers, 1998). Others have
pointed more pragmatically to the weakening of environmental regulation, by
processes such as regulatory capture (where policymakers represent the interests of
investors) (Gouldson and Murphy, 1998; Singleton, 2000). Other critics have
suggested that public–private partnerships may contribute to the reshaping of
environmental discourses towards business objectives, and hence delineate discursive
patterns about the nature of environmental problems; how these may be solved; and
with whose expertise and participation (Hajer, 1995).
Secondly, debates within environmental governance have argued that the use of
public–private partnerships as a functional means of implementing policy represents a
3 Ecocentric thinkers believe nature to be fragile, and see themselves subject to nature rather than in control of it. The term is usually held in distinction to technocentric thinkers, who believe adequate levels of technological adaptation can solve environmental problems.
6
neo-liberal hollowing-out of the state, or trend towards so-called New Public
Management. These trends have been criticized for effectively reducing the public
space for governing the provision of social services, and hence eroding democratic
accountability of local governments (Rhodes, 1996; Skelcher et al, 2003). Such critics
have consequently questioned the claims of neo-liberal theorists that partnerships
reflect a ‘new pluralism’ in environmental politics because they actually reduce the
active participation of diverse actors in governing decisions (Imrie and Raco, 1999;
Fung and Wright, 2001).
Thirdly, critics from development studies have also suggested that implementing
partnerships without critical attention to questions of participation and governance
may result in policy that is not pro-poor, and may result in the continued influence of
political elites. Indeed, Evans (1996) has argued that accountability of partnerships
between state and non-state actors may be undermined by ‘embeddedness’ – or the
existence of influential leaders who are members of both state and ‘local’ groups, or
businesses and public collaborators. Norms of participation and democracy
transferred from different contexts may also result in overlooking how far such norms
may not operate in new contexts if the rights or access to participation for different
citizens are restricted (Fischer, 2003). In this paper, the case of waste pickers – or the
people living around waste dumps or collecting waste on the streets – may be
considered examples of such marginalized poor (Cornwall, 2002). The suggestion that
greenhouse gas mitigation by any means – including plantation forestry – must
necessarily be beneficial to all might also be considered an example of proposing an
environmental solution at a global level without sufficient local consultation.
In response to these criticisms, scholars have proposed a number of ways to increase
the local deliberative capacity of partnerships in order to enhance both local
accountability, yet still achieve the functional objectives of business operations and
technology transfer. Jänicke (1992:80) called for ‘consensual capacity’ as a means to
ensure public contentment with incoming investment. Weber (1998) urged attention
to ‘assurance mechanisms’ as means of reducing risks to investors through local
guarantees, such as local participation in cost-reducing measures. Together, such
terms may be summarized under the concept of ‘cooperative environmental
governance,’ which Meadowcroft defines as:
7
A cooperative management regime is a form of social regulation in
which groups originating in different spheres of social life, and
reflecting distinct perspectives and interests, participate in debate
and negotiation to achieve a common understanding of a specific
problem, and then implements a collective plan for its resolution
(Meadowcroft, 1998:22).
Glasbergen (1998) defines cooperative environmental governance as an alternative to
the existing four dominant options of state-led regulation, voluntary agreements from
companies, the operation of the free market, and activism from civil society. The
purpose of cooperative environmental governance is to overcome the necessarily
conflictual nature of negotiations, and instead seek a positive negotiating space
between investors and citizen groups. Such governance may be deliberative in that it
allows local actors to participate in the identification and implementation of norms of
environmental concern and political accountability, and hence overcome the problems
of misrepresentation or domination described above (see also Klausen and Sweeting,
2003). In terms of climate change policy, cooperative environmental governance may
make CDM-related investment less functional and oriented only to the output of
reducing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, but to increase the numbers of
options by which this objective is achieved, primarily by increasing local participation
in deciding how investment is made.
Meadowcroft (1998) listed six potential advantages of this approach, which are listed
in Table 1. Yet, these advantages have mainly been identified in the contexts of North
America and Europe where mechanisms of civil society participation in
environmental regulation are more advanced, and where state capacity for formulating
and implementing policy is greater than in developing countries. These advantages
may be criticized if applied in rapidly industrializing countries, for reasons briefly
also summarized in Table 1. Some of these are worth describing in more detail. First,
much discussion of cooperative environmental governance assumes the ability for
negotiations to take place in empowered ways with investors or representatives of the
state, which may not always be possible in developing societies (see Evans, 1996).
Secondly, much of the discourse of cooperative environmental governance implies
negotiations with the state, and a division within civil society between a participatory
8
style (of collaboration) and so-called rejectionists (who seek confrontation)
(Glasbergen, 1998:8-9). In developing countries, the state may not be as omnipresent
nor omnipotent, and citizens and investors may form institutions themselves without
negotiation with the state (indeed Winrock’s coordinated investment in eastern
Indonesia is largely in the absence of state actors). Thirdly, environmental and
technical expertise may not be extended in a uniform and progressive way via
partnerships, but may lead to the extension of diverse and contested networks of
expertise and environmental evaluation. Indeed, policy discourse debates about
environmental expertise in developing countries have pointed to the divisions between
social class and different objectives such as ‘green’ (wilderness) or ‘brown’ (housing
and industrial) agendas, and the impacts of political bureaucracies and advocacy
coalitions with NGOs in maintaining specific narratives of environmental concern.
Indeed, Hajer (1995:64) has argued that different political actors may subscribe to
overriding narratives or environmental storylines as a means of empowering their
political negotiating stance, rather than actors reshaping environmental norms.
[Table 1 around here]
There are two implications of these potential problems in implementing cooperative
environmental governance as a way of making public–private partnerships more
deliberative in developing countries. Firstly, negotiations may not take place in a
clearly defined public sphere where actors have clearly defined rights of access, but
instead in diverse arenas with varying legitimacy. Arenas may include formal
debating chambers such as city halls, within the media, or via street demonstrations.
Secondly, the norms of environmental concern, expertise, and accountability for
partnerships may not be forged within partnerships as freestanding institutions of
deliberative governance. Instead, local public–private partnerships may form effective
associations that are not uniformly governed or transparent, and which become sites
where wider networks, political alliances, and norms of environmentalism or
environmental policy are replicated locally. Achieving deliberative public–private
partnerships in rapidly developing countries may therefore require viewing
governance as the local manipulation of powerful networks, rather than as the
existence of comparatively powerful and transparent institutions with clearly defined
arenas, actors, and boundaries (Dowding, 1995; Goss, 2001; Fischer, 2003).
9
The following case studies consider the deliberative capacity of public–private
partnerships in investment in waste-to-energy projects in the Philippines and India,
and explore the means to increase local governance of climate change-related
investment.
The Controversies of Waste-to-Energy Investment
The case studies in this paper focus on waste management, and especially waste-to-
energy investment. In many locations, waste-to-energy projects are considered
controversial, and illustrate a classic divide between so-called technocentric
environmentalists, who seek managerial or technological solutions to environmental
problems, and ecocentrics, who instead search for a more fundamental avoidance of
environmental degradation. For many technocentrics, the principle of using
agricultural or municipal solid waste to generate energy (or electricity) seems a
pragmatic solution to rising amounts of waste production, and the reliance on fossil
fuels for energy. For ecocentrics, however, waste-to-energy projects provide an
unacceptable legitimization of the production of waste, and hence remove attention
from the more radical solution of a zero-waste society.
In addition, there are also specific criticisms of waste-to-energy as a source of
pollution. Environmentalists have claimed incineration of municipal waste, especially
plastics, may create dangerous dioxins, and add to atmospheric pollution. Moreover,
experience has also shown that some incinerators may only succeed in burning waste
if diesel fuel is added, thus contradicting the energy efficiency arguments. In
response, technologists have argued that such concerns are increasingly irrelevant if
new forms of incineration – notably pyrolysis4 – are used, because these are not
aerobic forms of combustion, and dangerous emissions are reduced. Moreover,
incinerators are bound by local environmental regulations that can specify emission
levels.
4 Pyrolysis is a form of incineration that chemically decomposes organic materials by heat in the absence of oxygen. Pyrolysis typically occurs under pressure and at operating temperatures above 430°C (800°F).
10
An alternative form of waste-to-energy to incineration or pyrolysis is biomethanation
or anaerobic digestion, which involves no combustion, and instead breaks down
organic waste by using bacteria in confined spaces. Biomethanation only uses the
organic fraction of waste, and allows the recovery of methane from waste material
while leaving a residual sludge that can be used for compost. The remaining inorganic
material (papers, plastics, metals, etc.) need to be removed, but can also be used for
recycling. Biomethanation is frequently preferred by organizations working with poor
people in urban areas, as biomethanation allows poor people to sift through waste to
collect recyclables to sell. Such participation by waste collectors (or ‘waste pickers’)
is sometimes not feasible with pyrolysis because the pyrolysis procedure requires the
inclusion of recyclable paper and plastics in order to achieve an adequate calorific
value for the waste. Companies investing in pyrolysis therefore usually want to gain
ownership of the entire waste stream, whereas investors in biomethanation normally
only want the organic matter.
Waste-to-energy projects raise a number of opportunities and dilemmas for climate
change policy. For many developing countries, foreign investment in waste
management represents an ideal ‘win–win’ solution to the Clean Development
Mechanism because foreign investors can gain climate change credits for mitigating
methane emissions and providing electricity from non-fossil fuel sources, while local
citizens can benefit from the treatment of municipal waste and the generation of
electricity. But investment in waste-to-energy has been resisted in many countries by
concerns that it may add to pollution, or work against long-term solutions to the
generation of waste. Furthermore, investment requires the availability of local actors
willing to work cooperatively with investors, and such local partnerships may not be
forthcoming. Some newer waste-to-energy technologies are not well understood
either, and may be confused with orthodox incineration.
At present, investors are using both incineration and biomethanation of waste-to-
energy projects to claim financial rewards for climate change mitigation, although
some critics have alleged that incineration should not be included as a ‘climate-
friendly’ technology. Biomethanation, however, is particularly attractive for climate
change policy because methane has 23 times the global warming potential of carbon
11
dioxide, and hence may result in high levels of financial compensation from the Clean
Development Mechanism in addition to addressing problems of waste in developing
countries.
The following two sections describe case studies of waste-to-energy projects in the
Philippines and India that show varying levels of deliberative public–private
partnerships. In both cases, research was conducted by on-site interviews with key
actors from local government, citizen groups and investors, plus detailed documentary
and newspaper research for background information. The examples were selected
because they were all topical examples of new investment in waste-to-energy where
collaboration with citizen groups was sought.
Waste-to-energy projects in the Philippines
In the Philippines, two important steps have been taken at the national level to
shaping forms of waste-to-energy projects by the passing of a national ban on
incineration in 2001, and national waste management legislation that makes it
mandatory for all waste to be segregated between organic and inorganic types within
households and firms. Both units of legislation were inspired by growing concern at
the rising level of municipal solid waste in the Philippines, and the shocking event in
2000 when some 200 waste pickers were killed in a ‘landslide’ of garbage at the
Payatas waste dump outside Manila. The ban on incineration of waste was
particularly influenced by the campaign of the NGO, Greenpeace, which had set up an
office in Manila in 1999.
The ban on incineration effectively put an official end to waste-to-energy projects
involving incineration. However, campaigners were still concerned that waste-to-
energy projects might still be allowed by informal means, and Greenpeace actively
campaigned against them after the ban. Perhaps curiously, campaigners also sought to
ban biomethanation, and – under interview – claimed to have no knowledge of this
technology as a means of capturing methane (interviews dating from 2001).
Moreover, the mandatory segregation of solid waste has proved difficult to
implement, largely because of the diversity of sources of municipal waste.
12
Furthermore, local municipalities and truck drivers have resisted segregation because
it may reduce the total amount of waste to be transported each day to waste dumps,
and hence may reduce their income in performing transportation. Segregation may
also reduce opportunities for truck drivers to perform their own sorting of
unsegregated waste, and hence the chance to collect profitable recyclable items for
themselves.5
Despite these problems, some locations have sought to introduce waste-to-energy
projects using biomethanation technologies, and involving local partnerships with
citizen groups. The case studies described here were selected because they were
topical examples of disputes about waste-to-energy projects, in which local
collaboration between investors and citizen groups were important.6
Ayala Alabang
During the late 1990s, a US-based investor in biomethanation sought to establish a
waste-to-energy power plant in the town of Ayala Alabang, 30 km south of Pasig City
in greater Manila. The town is considered a wealthy suburb of Manila. The power
plant sought to use animal waste from pigs and cows in local farms, including the
possibility for human sewage too. The crucial element of public–private collaboration
was in an agreement with a local women’s NGO who agreed to conduct the waste
collection for the power plant. It was not in the investor’s interests to increase its costs
by collecting waste, as this represented additional investment costs with low
commercial return. However, the local government and the NGO were happy to
provide the labor and training necessary to collect waste, as this coincided with local
environmental objectives of waste management and keeping water clean.
This agreement with the NGO, and the power purchasing agreement (PPA) with the
local government effectively provided the assurance mechanisms necessary for the
investor to proceed with this project. However, the project reached an impasse in
2000 for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, the company was unable to get offers 5 Source: interviews with environmental NGOs, Foundation for a Sustainable Future, and Preferred Energy Incorporated, Manila. 6 The names of investors and NGOs in specific case studies are kept confidential in order to protect privacy.
13
of cheap land rent from local landowners because landowners mistakenly believed the
power plant would create high profit margins because the waste came from a
relatively wealthy neighborhood. Secondly, the investing company also made an error
by trying to gain control over the entire municipality waste stream (i.e. both organic
and inorganic material) in order to profit from both biomethanation of organic
material and recycling of inorganic material. Experience quickly showed, however,
that very little of the valuable recyclable material reached the sorting site because
waste collectors and truck drivers performed their own unauthorized sorting of waste
on the way to the sorting site. As a result, the company could not achieve cost
recovery for inorganic waste because it was unable to stop other people removing the
valuable fractions. Together, these factors made the new project unprofitable, and it
had to close. The project’s initial ‘win–win’ appearance based on the agreement
between the investor and one local civic group had been undermined by the actions of
other civil actors who had felt unrepresented in the agreement, and who could not be
effectively regulated by the company, NGO, or municipality.
Baguio
Baguio is a large town in the north of the Philippine island of Luzon, and is famous
for being the historic summer capital of the Philippines. The town is situated in a
mountainous area, and its waste dump risks causing water pollution for lowland
settlements. During 2000–2001, the same US-based investor sought to establish a
biomethanation plant that would process organic waste, and allow recycling of other
waste. This time, the proposed project would employ existing waste pickers at the
Baguio dump in order to segregate waste, and provide the separation of organic and
inorganic waste necessary for biomethanation. The investor did not attempt to control
the inorganic waste stream in Baguio. Indeed, the employment of the local waste
collectors was seen by the investor to be a shrewd way to reduce their own costs (by
using the collectors to segregate waste), and to gain support of the local government
by demonstrating the local developmental benefits of the project.
The proposal was well received by the local municipality, who then began a long
process of agreeing rents with the investor. Unexpectedly, however, the project
received criticism from a national NGO with a local office in Baguio. The NGO
14
argued that waste-to-energy projects – in principle – were unwelcome because they
legitimized the creation of waste, and – specifically in Baguio – threatened the
livelihoods of some 150 waste collectors who lived in and around the waste dumps,
and many of whom would not be employed at the waste-to-energy plant. In addition,
the NGO claimed that the waste-to-energy project would prevent the manufacture of
compost, which they considered a main part of local livelihoods. Such statements
were made in protest to the local municipality, and were disseminated in local
newspapers and newsletters.
The investor responded by explaining to the NGO and municipality that the waste-to-
energy plant would not use all waste at the dump, and that they did not seek to control
the inorganic recyclable section of the waste. The company also challenged the claims
about compost by saying compost resulting from anaerobic digestion was of better
quality than that made from traditional aerobic means. In effect, this statement shifted
the debate from defining whether compost would be made, and by which means,
towards who would own the compost once it was made. Under the waste-to-energy
plant, the compost would be a by-product of biomethanation, and hence would be
owned by the company, a situation the NGO considered unhelpful for local
livelihoods. As a result, the NGO urged a return to a system of waste segregation at
dumps (i.e. prior to the national household waste legislation urging segregation into
organic and inorganic within households and firms), because it saw segregation at the
dump to be in the best interests of waste pickers.
It is also worth noting that the company did not highlight the potential benefits of
climate change mitigation from biomethanation in this dispute because it feared these
aspects may not be understood, or – even worse – that the prospect of earning carbon
credits may cause resentment that the company create profits in this way. Yet, in an
interview, a representative of the NGO explained that climate change policy was not
perceived to be a relevant issue at all, saying, “When we talk of solid waste
management we see no connection with climate change.” Instead, the main concerns
were to protect the livelihoods of waste pickers; a lack of trust of waste-to-energy
technologies; and worry that a foreign investor may influence local politics too
strongly.
15
Other actors also voiced the desire to protect the autonomy of local actors against
decisionmaking by outsiders. In a separate interview with a middle-class organization
that trains waste pickers to collect recyclable waste from households in Manila, a
spokesperson voiced concern at biomethanation as a new and complicated way of
making compost. The statement seems to indicate a sense of intrusion against the
traditional means of composting:
…you do not have to use complicated methods in converting
organic waste back to compost to the soil, you don’t need
complicated, ur, state of the art, you don’t need that, because the
Philippinos have been converting waste to compost for many,
many thousands of years now.
By 2003, the proposal to build a biomethanation plant in Baguio was still awaiting
approval from the municipality. The investor claimed the main barrier was that the
city councilors were awaiting informal financial payments to help the project proceed,
and the investor was unwilling to make such payments. Meanwhile, the waste pickers’
own concerns (according to an interview with their local leader7) were that any
changes to the waste dump would threaten livelihoods by removing the land the
pickers were informally holding as houses, and as areas to raise pigs. The waste
picker leader claimed that working for the investor in the waste-to-energy plant was
attractive if jobs could be guaranteed. But there was concern that jobs could not be
secured for all workers, and that having just one family member working in the plant
would not be enough to provide income for all. Yet the status quo was not totally
attractive either: the interview also revealed that living near the dump also had its
disadvantages, by encouraging illnesses such as asthma, bronchitis and influenza.
Waste-to-energy projects in India
India may be considered a valid country to consider in tandem with the Philippines
because they both have large markets for waste-to-energy projects, a large urban poor
7 The waste picker representative was a male in his 50s who was also the acting head of the local barangay, or municipal sub-district. He was a retired administrator whose family had conducted waste recycling for years in order to earn supplemental incomes.
16
population, and both countries are industrializing quickly. Unlike the Philippines,
however, India has not yet passed any national legislation making household
segregation of waste mandatory, or making incineration of waste illegal.
Waste-to-energy projects in India, however, are commonly associated with a few
historic catastrophic failures in technology transfer. For example, in 1984, the
Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES) installed a waste incinerator
using Danish technology as a pilot project to demonstrate waste-to-energy in
Timarpur, Delhi. Unfortunately, the project miscalculated the moisture content of the
available waste in Delhi, and consequently was unable to burn waste unless diesel was
added. According to reports, the incinerator operated for less than a month, and its last
day of operation was when the project was visited by the then-Prime Minister, Rajiv
Gandhi, after which the incinerator was closed down, and the Danish suppliers issued
a law suit for failure to implement the agreed contract.8 This experience seriously
damaged the popular image of waste-to-energy as a suitable source of energy.
There are, of course, very many examples of waste-to-energy investments in India,
but the following cases provided means to analyze collaboration between citizen
groups and international investors.
Lucknow
Perhaps the most apparently successful Indian example of a plant using
biomethanation to process municipal waste is in the town of Lucknow, in Uttar
Pradesh province. The plant opened in 2003, generating some 5 megawatts of
electricity from between 400–500 tons of municipal organic waste per day, and is
operated by an Asian-based company with a variety of international shareholders. The
company, however, supports local waste pickers by allowing pickers to segregate
waste before it comes to the plant, in order to remove the valuable recyclable non-
organic sections such as papers and plastics, as well as inorganic material that needs
to be removed before biomethanation. The company works collaboratively with an
8 Source: interviews with environmental NGOs, the Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi, and Toxics Link, Delhi.
17
NGO, Exnora, which specializes in working on waste management issues, and even
assists the NGO by buying bicycles for waste pickers working for the organization.
When asked why the company adopts this philanthropic attitude to waste pickers, the
company representative said:
we don’t want to upset the existing social system. Our main income
comes from power, fertilizer and carbon credits. The recyclable
income is not significant to us, but it is significant to society.
The company representative also discussed the public perception that
waste-to-energy for municipal waste is problematic. The representative
was keen to point out that biomethanation was not as polluting as
incineration, and that it offered opportunities for integrating methane
production with income for waste pickers:
Everyone knows biogas is a clean fuel, we are not burning plastics
or depriving people of livelihoods, and we are working with other
groups to achieve segregation at source.
The company had achieved assurance mechanisms for different sources of profit. It
had negotiated a ten-year purchase agreement with an environmental broking
company for 10 years. It also had arranged to convert the sludge remaining after
biomethanation into fertilizer, and not simply compost, because it judged there to be a
surplus of compost from aerobic sources. The company’s biggest problem was in
achieving a guarantee of a regular stream of organic waste to its plant. Agreeing to let
waste pickers segregate waste by removing recyclables may therefore reduce the
company’s costs in ensuring that the organic waste supply is forthcoming.
In other interviews in various locations in India, some NGOs criticized this plant in
Lucknow on the grounds that it was still a highly centralized and high-cost
investment, which made the plant still largely controlled by the investor and which
may also make some of the recycling and electricity less financially attractive than
commonly thought. These concerns, of course, may be unsurprising for India’s first
major municipal waste biomethanation plant. But, despite these concerns, the project
in Lucknow illustrates a case where waste pickers were actively invited to take part in
18
the production process with the backing of the local state. Indeed, the government of
Lucknow has achieved a recent reputation for working to assist urban poor people,
especially of low caste who commonly comprise waste pickers.
Chennai
The city of Chennai (Madras) presents an example of a more conflictual collaboration
on waste-to-energy. Ironically, Chennai also shows examples of successful
community action for waste management that have been undermined by recent
decisions by the local government. In the 1980s, a group of concerned middle-class
citizens created an NGO, Exnora (standing for ‘Excellent, Novel, Radical’) as a way
to hire waste pickers (or so-called ‘street beautifiers’) to collect household waste and
take it to collecting points at the end of each street. Streets could be up to a kilometer
long, and hence transporting waste was appreciated, and paid for, by citizens. In time,
the Exnora concept had spread to other cities in India and other countries. The Exnora
model allowed waste pickers to profit from recycling material as well as contribute to
the provision of street cleaning on an organized basis (Anand, 2003).
In 2000, however, the local Chennai government replaced municipal services for
waste collection with a new private-sector contract with the multinational waste
collecting company, Onyx. Unfortunately, many of the roads chosen as Onyx’s
territory were those already serviced by Exnora, and hence made much of Exnora’s
services redundant, even though the Onyx service – to date – did not involve
transporting waste from households to the street collection points. A coordinator of
Exnora commented:
I would like to give the benefit of doubt to them and I would really
not want to say it was deliberate, I would rather like to say lack of
foresight.
At the same time, the local government of Chennai was approached by an Australian
investor seeking to establish a pyrolysis waste-to-energy plant at one of the city’s
larger waste dumps. The proposal was opposed by a national NGO, Toxics Link,
because this technology may still emit dioxins and damage the livelihoods of waste
19
pickers by burning recyclable material. The NGO also alleged that the investor
concerned had yet to fully demonstrate a pilot project of the technology. For its part,
the investor claims that the recycling achieved by pickers only removes the most
valuable of waste products, rather than all inorganic particles, and hence the pyrolysis
technology – with associated segregation and cleaning of waste – may be a faster and
healthier solution for waste management. Indeed, the investor argued that pyrolysis
offered the most immediate solution for Chennai’s burgeoning waste dumps.
Furthermore, to support its case, the investor invoked a new discourse of stating that it
was unacceptable in modern society to allow waste pickers to continue sorting waste
on streets or in dumps. A company representative said in 2003:
…there is no manual handling of raw garbage under [this
technology]. I am proud of that, and the company is proud to say
that we have no handling of raw garbage. Use people to hand
garbage? Like hell! Not on my watch. If you want to perpetuate
the system where human beings handle other people’s raw
garbage then I refuse.
Such statements of course deserve consideration, yet it is also fair to say that the
company needs the calorific value of paper and plastic in its waste supply in order to
burn it without the addition of inflammable materials. By using this argument, the
investor, however, was also disempowering the justification used in Lucknow and in
Baguio by investors in biomethanation that waste pickers should be used in the
production process.
The case also caused controversy within the local government. Acting on its own
judgments, the Pollution Control Board of Chennai formally recommended that the
pyrolysis project be rejected on grounds of air pollution, and concerns about the
company’s ability to demonstrate the technology working. Yet, after consultation with
the company, in February 2003, the local governor decided that the project should
continue. Some activists alleged, informally, that such a decision might have reflected
a personal agreement between the governor and the company. For some campaigners,
this decision was only a short-term setback, and the chances of reversing the decision
were still high. That said, no rival biomethanation project had yet been proposed in
20
Chennai, thus making the pyrolysis project the main contender for addressing the
problem of municipal waste.
Discussion and conclusions
The case studies here of course are selective, but are examples of public–private
partnerships currently under negotiation that attempt to provide collaboration between
investors and citizen groups. As such, the cases present reasonable examples of
attempts at deliberative partnerships, or cooperative environmental governance.
The cases show that participation and governance are not uniform processes. It is
clear, as indicated in Table 1, that the optimistic proposed advantages of cooperative
environmental governance are indeed difficult to reproduce under the political
conditions of the Philippines and India. Open access to political debates by different
social groups is not always possible, and hence partnerships may not easily be called
forms of political pluralism. Poor sectors of society – perhaps most typically the waste
pickers in these cases – were often co-opted (as predicted by Hajer, 1995) to support
wider political arguments from more powerful actors, such as the adoption or
rejection of a particular technology or institutional structure. (For example, the
Australian investor in pyrolysis sought to exclude waste pickers from dumps in
Chennai for their own sake, in the same way that the Lucknow biomethanation
investor sought to involved pickers in segregation because it was good for them).
Environmental expertise was not established by the attempts at collaboration, but
instead reflected wider networks of environmental norms such as ecocentric principles
of seeking zero waste, or the technocentric management of waste and health risks
through incineration. Indeed, the attitude of Greenpeace in Manila (at the time of
interviewing) suggested that their knowledge about the impacts of biomethanation
was misinformed and secondary to their wider ecocentric objectives of achieving a
waste-free society.
The problems of achieving deliberative partnerships raise a number of implications.
First, the institutions formed by public–private partnerships of the kind discussed here
do not stand alone as new discursive arenas (or public spheres) to formulate new and
21
locally representative norms about environmental protection and governance. Instead,
they replicate and – to some extent – co-opt existing norms, which are frequently
communicated by networks of actors who are not local, such as national and
international NGOs. Indeed, this problem was well expressed by a representative of
the national Indian NGO, Toxics Link, who openly discussed the problems of allying
with Greenpeace:
Historically Greenpeace has had problems around the world when
it starts working with local groups. Because it is the way it is
constructed, it needs to occupy space of all sorts in order to justify
its funding and its programs. So, it needs to be a dominant player.
Now this is not always well taken by local players. …I don’t think
the Greenpeace ur, the, Greenpeace ur, as an organization will be
able to justify visibility or very little visibility, or equal visibility of
a local partner.
Second, it is also clear that the norms of legitimacy and accountability of public–
private partnerships as institutions are not always determined by the local poor, but by
other actors who themselves are responding to other arenas. (For example, the
investors in biomethanation wanted to respond to local norms about employing waste
pickers, and the investor in pyrolysis wanted to appeal to wider norms about waste
picking in general). However, when actors do attempt to address the needs of local
poor people, then partnerships seem to work well, as in the biomethanation cases in
Lucknow, or potentially in Baguio. This finding suggests the rather obvious
conclusion that a willingness to incorporate the views of other partners is important in
making collaboration work. Yet, more pertinently, it also implies that partnerships
create new boundaries defining the ownership of resources (such as waste), which
allow different levels of access to the poor. For example, in Ayala Alabang, the
attempt of the investor to achieve its own segregation of waste failed because truck
drivers informally removed the most valuable waste before it was delivered. Yet, in
Lucknow the company openly allowed waste pickers to segregate waste as a means to
access the inorganic fraction while the company was assuming ownership of organic
fraction.
22
Thirdly, nonetheless, the case studies suggest that successful partnerships result from
occasions when collaboration between investors and citizen groups is allowed without
overt interference from local governments. In Baguio, Ayala Alabang, and Chennai,
actions by local states have – knowingly or otherwise – undermined attempts at
deliberative partnerships. Similarly, the cases have also shown unwillingness of other
actors, such as the Philippine NGOs in Baguio and Manila, to treat both climate
change and Western technologies with distrust, and hence not work cooperatively
towards public–private partnerships.
The implications of these points are to confirm that deliberative public–private
partnerships work most effectively when investors, local governments and citizen
groups are willing to work together to implement new technologies, and produce
arenas to discuss these technologies that are locally inclusive. Yet, making such
partnerships deliberative requires – as Fischer (2003) urges – moving beyond the
search for transferable principles of institutional design, but to ensure the ability of
different actors to communicate locally relevant norms of environmental concern and
political accountability. Building capacity for deliberative partnerships that address
both global concerns such as climate change policy and local environment and
livelihood concerns does not simply mean educating local people about predefined
institutional structures or environmental risks. Instead, it means creating a deliberative
space between investors and citizen groups that allow open communication between
all parties, an act that frequently requires actors to define their own spaces (or
negotiating arenas) rather than accept usual models such as public consultations with
the local government. Yet, perhaps most importantly, establishing such arenas also
implies the need to be wary of allowing these spaces to become dominated by norms
about environmental concern and accountability imposed by powerful actors both
inside and beyond that space.
Acknowledgement
Research for this paper was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council
‘Future Governance’ program, award number: L216 25 2012.
23
24
Table 1: Advantages of cooperative environmental governance, and potential
problems in rapidly industrializing countries
Advantages of collaborative
environmental management (after
Meadowcroft, 1998)
Potential problems under rapid
industrialization (source: the author)
Structured framework for pluralist inputs
to environmental policymaking
Collaboration may still exclude less
powerful voices, or those without rights
of access to negotiations
Mechanism for building consensus and
especially for transforming interests
towards more communal objectives
Consensus may be only apparent, and
overlook social divisions with definitions
of ‘community’
Flexible between different contexts and
participants
Institutional designs may not be as
transferable as thought if rights of access
to political arenas not equally developed
More stable and legitimate policy
outcomes
Legitimacy of governance structures may
reflect structures of political debate,
rather than the full opinions of all citizens
Allow introduction of expert scientific
and technical advice
Expertise may not be representative of
local environmental concerns and
framings, nor take into account
constructivist critiques of science and
technical knowledge
Encourages environmental learning
within social contexts
Local forms of learning may be inhibited
if institutional designs, norms and
networks of expertise are seen to be rigid;
governance should seek to empower local
determination of norms through
enhancing communication
25
References
Anand, P. B. (2003) “From conflict to cooperation: Some design issues for local collective
action institutions,” Journal of International Development, 15:2 231-243.
Blowers, A. (1998) ‘Power participation and partnership: the limits of co-operative
environmental management’, pp.229-250 in Glasbergen, P. (ed) Co-operative environmental
management: public-private agreements as a policy strategy, Dordrecht, London: Kluwer.
Cornwall, A. (2002) Making spaces, changing places: Situating participation in development,
Working Paper 170, Sussex: Institute of Development Studies.
Dowding, K. (1995) ‘Model or metaphor: A critical review of the policy network approach,’
Political Studies 43:1 136-158.
Evans, P. (1996) ‘Introduction: Development strategies across the public-private divide,’
World Development, 24:6 1033-1037.
French, H. (1998) Investing in the future: harnessing private capital flows for
environmentally sustainable development, Worldwatch Paper 139, Worldwatch Institute:
Washington D.C.
Fischer, F. (2000) Citizens, experts and the environment: The politics of local knowledge,
Durham: Duke University Press.
Fischer, F. (2003) ‘Discursive spaces for participatory governance: From design principles to
communicative practices,’ Paper presented at Conference on Democratic Network
Governance, 22-23 May 2003, Centre for Democratic Network Governance, Denmark.
Forsyth, T. (1999) International Investment and Climate Change: Energy Technologies for
Developing Countries, London: RIIA and Earthscan.
Fung, A. and Wright, E. (2001) ‘Deepening democracy: Innovations in empowered local
governance,’ Politics and Society 29:1 5-41.
26
Glasbergen, P. (ed) (1998) Co-operative environmental management: public-private
agreements as a policy strategy, Dordrecht, London: Kluwer.
Goss, S. (2001) Making local governance work: Networks, relationships and the management
of change, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Gouldson, A. & Murphy, J. (1998) Regulatory realities: environmental policy and
implementation in the UK, London: Earthscan.
Hajer, M. (1995) The politics of environmental discourse, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Imrie R, and Raco M, (1999) ‘How New is the New Urban Governance? Lessons from the
UK’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24: 45-64.
Jänicke, M. (1992) ‘Conditions for environmental policy success: An international
comparison,’ The Environmentalist 12:1 47-58.
John, D. (1994) Civic environmentalism: alternatives to regulation in states and communities,
Washington DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.
Klausen, J. and Sweeting, D. (2003) ‘Legitimacy, citizen participation and community
involvement in governance,’ Paper presented at Conference on Democratic Network
Governance, 22-23 May 2003, Centre for Democratic Network Governance, Denmark.
Labonne, B. (1998) ‘Public-private partnerships in natural resources management’, Natural
Resources Forum 22:2 75-76.
Lee, Y. (1997) ‘The privatisation of solid waste infrastructure in Asia’, Third World Planning
Review 19:2 139-162.
Meadowcroft, J. (1998) ‘Co-operative management regimes: A way forward?’ pp. 21-42 in
Glasbergen, P. (ed) Co-operative environmental management: public-private agreements as a
policy strategy, Dordrecht, London: Kluwer.
Osbourne, S. (2000) Public–Private Partnerships London: Routledge.
27
Plummer, J. (2002) Focusing partnerships: A sourcebook for municipal capacity building in
public–private partnerships. London and Sterling, VA: Earthscan.
Rhodes, R. (1996) The new governance: governing without government, Political Studies 44:
4 652-66.
Rosenau, P. (ed) (2000) Public−Private Policy Partnerships, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Singleton, S. (2000) ‘Co-operation or capture? The paradox of co-management and
community participation in natural resource management and environmental policy-making,’
Environmental Politics 9: 1-21.
Skelcher, C., Mathur, N., and Smith, M. (2003) ‘Partnership discourse and the democratic
governance of local communities: A preliminary empirical assessment,’ Paper presented at
Conference on Democratic Network Governance, 22-23 May 2003, Centre for Democratic
Network Governance, Denmark.
Stiglitz, J. and Wallsten, S. (2000) ‘Public-private technology partnerships: promise and
pitfalls,’ pp. 37-58 in Rosenau, P. (ed) Public−Private Policy Partnerships, Cambridge MA:
MIT Press.
Weber, E. (1998) Pluralism by the rules: conflict and co-operation in environmental
regulation Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.